


The Failure of Einstein's Universe

by Annakovsky



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Christmas, Dating, Dress-up, F/M, Fake Dating, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penny desperately needs to save face in front of her ex, so she makes Sheldon pretend to be her boyfriend. It's like Three's Company all up in here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Failure of Einstein's Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kyra Cullinan (Kyra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/gifts).



Penny's so hyped up, full of Red Bull and Cheetos and quests, and it's driving her crazy how she can't defeat this goddamn cave troll already. She's been so intent she didn't even turn the lights on when the sun went down, so it's just her and the glow of her screen and the team of Cal Tech elves yelling in her ear, go, go, go, and she didn't know it was such a rush all the time, doing the stuff the guys do. She likes it, she yells into her microphone and swings her sword, but dammit, the cave troll kills her again and she's had enough, she needs Sheldon.

Sheldon's lying in his bed like a mummy as usual, and she creeps up beside him, trying to be quiet so she doesn't wake up Leonard. "Sheldon," she whispers, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Sheldon. Sheldon." She knocks three times on his bedside table, threes and threes, and boy, she's hyper and she doesn't even care.

He sits straight up. "Danger!" he yells.

"Sheldon, it's just me," she says, like always. For heaven's sake. Every time.

"You can't be in my bedroom," he says, but even he sounds half-hearted at this point, which he should since this is not exactly the first time they've had this conversation. He has to know by now that the faster he gets down to business, the faster he can get her out of his room.

"I know, sweetie," she says, and pats his knee under the blankets.

He jerks away. "Penny, you know I don't like to be touched," he says.

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever," she says. "Sheldon, there's this cave troll and I can't figure out how to defeat it."

He looks at her with a pained desperate look. "Penny," he says. "You really have to learn to cope with these things yourself."

"Oh, come on," she says. "I want to kill this thing so bad and we both know that the sooner you tell me what weapon I need to use, the sooner I'll be out of your hair."

"Yes," Sheldon says. "But you'll just be in my hair again tomorrow night." He says "in my hair" like it's some kind of foreign phrase that doesn't come naturally to him. He looks at her, all aggravated and sleepy, and then, weirdly, his expression shifts into something really bizarre looking. He starts blinking a lot, and baring his teeth in the creepiest smile Penny's ever seen, and for a second she's actually worried that maybe he _can_ blow her up with his mind. Like maybe there was finally an accident in the lab and everyone's seriously at risk. And she has the feeling that if Sheldon became a super villain, she'd be the only one who'd be able to defeat him, and she doesn't really have time for that this week.

"What's wrong with you?" she says, genuinely perturbed, and Sheldon's weird smile gets bigger. He actually reaches out and puts his hand on her leg, but gingerly, like it might give him an electric shock. It's the first time he's ever touched her voluntarily. "Sheldon," she says. "You're kind of freaking me out here."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sheldon says, and the creepy smile drops as his forehead furrows. And he's back to looking like Sheldon again, confused by human interaction, all his brain power working to figure it out. "I forgot you like to initiate sexual encounters."

Penny almost chokes on her own tongue. "What?" she sputters out, jumping up from the bed and moving backwards. "Um, Sheldon, what exactly do you think you're doing?"

"Seducing you," he says, like he's genuinely surprised it's not obvious, the way he always sounds when she asks him, like, why Superman would be affected by the yellow sun of the earth. "I've hypothesized that sexual frustration is the primary cause of your fixation on online multiplayer gaming, and that by satisfying this frustration, I could minimize any continuing interest you might have in becoming a level 50 warrior princess. Though, as you know, I do not enjoy physical contact, at this point I'm willing to do anything conceivable to prevent you from being in my bedroom. Penny, people can't be in my bedroom." He says the last sentence with full-on pleading in his voice, like he can't help saying it, the agitated way he sounds when anybody sits in his place on the couch.

"Um," is all she can say for a long minute. She's really never been rendered so completely speechless, and as her brain starts to begin functioning again, she tries to think of the politest way to say this. Oh, to hell with politeness. "No. No way. Hell no. No. Oh my God, Sheldon, _no_."

"Well, think it over," Sheldon says, clearly not at all insulted. "If you're concerned about sexually transmitted diseases, I can tell you with absolute certainty that as my first sexual partner, you're at no risk at all. And if pregnancy is a concern, there are many ways to achieve orgasm without vaginal intercourse."

"Oh my God," she says, putting her hands up to her temples. "I . . . Wait, first sexual partner?" She doesn't know why her brain picks the most irrelevant, and frankly, unsurprising, detail to fixate on, but there it is.

"Yes," Sheldon says. "But if my inexperience is a concern, I can assure you that I've been reading up on technique on the internet, and --"

"Sheldon!" She cuts him off before he can finish that sentence with something even more horrific than the rest of this conversation. "Um, that's sweet, but no, thank you. And, um, I have to go maybe tell this conversation to a caring adult, so I'll talk to you later, okay?" And she's out the door maybe faster than she's ever done anything, slamming it behind her and leaning against it, trying to recover her equilibrium.

She must've slammed the door pretty hard, because a minute later, Leonard comes out of his room, tying the belt on his bathrobe. "Penny?" he says. "Everything all right?"

"Personally or cosmically?" she asks weakly. She's been hanging around Sheldon too much, saying stuff like that.

"Cosmically?" Leonard says, a little confused.

"No," she says. "Cosmically something is deeply wrong. I . . . don't think I can describe it any more than that without some detectives from the Special Victims Unit present." She starts to head back to her apartment, because she can't tell Leonard what just happened. It's just too deeply weird. And sort of embarrassing. Hypothesized that sexual frustration is the cause of . . . however it was Sheldon phrased it. Geez, what the hell, can't a girl just like killing trolls? Are girls not allowed to feel aggressive and to like video games and to maybe "accidentally" come over on Battlestar Galactica night and stay to watch the show for ten weeks in a row? It doesn't mean she's _frustrated_, God. "Bye, Leonard," she says. As she leaves, she can hear Leonard knocking on Sheldon's door.

She'd really, really, really, really never thought of Sheldon in a sexual context before, but after that it's hard not to wonder about it. If he's into girls or guys, or something weird, or what. If he jerks off, if he's attracted to anyone at all. His hand on her leg. It almost keeps her up at night, how creepy it is. Even if maybe he's not that terrible looking now that she thinks about it. He's tall, anyway. And -- ugh, it's just so gross, why can't she stop thinking about it?

**

Sheldon's driving her crazy, sitting out in the stairwell every time Leonard's, you know, making out with stupid perfect hot genius Leslie Winkle. It's like Sheldon's some kind of living tie on the door, pointing out how Leonard's moving on pretty damn quickly, and she should've known better than to date someone who lives across the hall anyway. Rack another one up on the bad decision chart. And on top of that, to make things more unbearable, the tie on the door is a pompous genius who keeps being snarky about community college every time she walks by.

So seriously, this Sheldon thing has to stop. She grabs her purse and as she breezes by him she says, "Sheldon. We're going to dinner. Now."

Sheldon hits a button on his laptop, pausing whatever he's doing. "What?" he says. "Why?"

"Because you're driving me crazy," Penny says. "Come on. You can't sit in this stairwell forever."

Sheldon looks annoyed, but he's closing his laptop and starting to stand up, so he must be getting a little sick of sitting out here too. Or he's just hungry. "I like the stairwell," he says. "I can get our WiFi and use our bathroom."

Penny rolls her eyes, holding the door of the building open for him. "Well, you can use the bathroom at the Cheesecake Factory too."

"Oh, Penny," he says, always so condescending. "Do I have to go over the bacteria content of public restrooms with you all over again?"

"No, thank you," she says. Once was more than enough.

**

As they're sitting in the restaurant waiting for their meal, Sheldon stops short in the middle of a monologue on the development of Klingon phonology and says, "It's Saturday night."

Penny's not quite sure what that has to do with anything, but that's a pretty common feeling when you're talking to Sheldon. She's only half listening anyway, so she just says, "It sure is."

"And you're wearing sweatpants," Sheldon says.

She's mildly offended. "So?" she says. "They're comfy."

"And you made me go to the Cheesecake Factory."

"Yes, Sheldon," she says. "Your powers of observation are stellar as always."

"You don't have a date," Sheldon says triumphantly, like he's figured out something difficult instead of something obvious. She really doesn't understand how backwards he is sometimes, how he's like what would happen if you turned a person inside out and had them walking around being the exact opposite of regular.

She taps her nose with her finger, all you've-got-it-Sheldon. "You're a regular Sherlock Holmes," she says.

"Well, this is very unusual," Sheldon says, all pleased with himself, settling back in his seat.

Ugh, he's unbearable. Why doesn't he understand that pointing out someone's a loser without anything to do on a Saturday night is kind of mean? "Shut up, Sheldon," Penny says, but then she's distracted because across the restaurant, she sees Brad, her most recent dreaded ex. He's with a date. Well, crap. Crap crap crap and here she's sitting sad and alone and in sweatpants like the huge loser failure that she is . . . wait, not alone, with Sheldon. Hey, now that she thinks about it, for all Brad knows, Sheldon's her very serious boyfriend.

Which is a horribly, horribly tempting idea, considering how desperately she needs to save some face. "Sheldon," she hisses across the table. He looks up from his meal, startled at the whispering. Crap, Brad's coming over. "Don't look, but my ex is about to come over here. _Follow my lead_."

"What?" Sheldon says. "I don't understand, you want . . . "

Brad's getting close, and oh God, there's no way Sheldon will be able to go along with this without correcting her, she has to do something drastic. "Sheldon," she whispers again, interrupting him. "Don't you dare say a word when Brad's here, no matter what I say, or I will take your little Luke Skywalker doll and open the packaging!" Hey, desperate times.

Sheldon looks appalled. "First of all," he says, "it's not a doll, it's an action figure. Second of all, you _wouldn't_. And third of all, why don't you want me to say a word?"

"I can't explain, but I'm _serious_, Sheldon, keep your big mouth shut or else," Penny manages to say just before Brad gets in earshot, and Sheldon shuts his mouth with a click, looking aggravated.

Brad arrives at the table with his slutty brunette date. "Penny," he says in that smirky frat-boy date-rapist way he has. God, she hates him and his stupid perfect handsome face. "It's so good to see you."

Penny smiles tightly. "Bradley."

"This is my date, Melissa," he says. Melissa waves. Brad looks derisively at Sheldon. "And who's this? Your brother?"

Sheldon starts to open his mouth, but she kicks him under the table and with a panicked look he shuts his mouth again.

"This is my boyfriend, Sheldon," she says. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Sheldon get a shocked, "I am _not_," look on his face, but luckily Brad's looking at her, not Sheldon. "He has two PhDs and an IQ that's not measurable by normal scales. And he's my very serious boyfriend."

At that Brad, who is not the brightest star in the night sky, actually looks a little hurt and taken aback. Score. But then he glances at Sheldon again and gets a suspicious look on his face. Sheldon's sitting over there pallidly fuming in his superhero t-shirt, and oh, crap. Maybe Brad'll mistake him for a hipster? Sheldon definitely looks judgmental enough, anyway. And Penny could be dating a hipster genius, Brad doesn't know. Maybe she turned over a new leaf.

"Oh, really," Brad says in this obnoxiously skeptical voice. "How long have you guys been together?"

She does the quick mental arithmetic of when she and Brad broke up and says, "Five months."

"Oh," Brad says again, still skeptical. "I hadn't heard anything about you dating someone."

"Well, you don't hear everything, Bradley," Penny says, hoping he'll give up on this showdown and leave them alone already. "Look, I'm wearing sweatpants. Would I be wearing sweatpants out on a date if it wasn't a serious relationship?"

Brad's eyes narrow a little bit, but then he looks like he's halfway towards believing her. "I guess not," Brad says. "Well, if he's your very serious boyfriend, I guess you'll be bringing him to Amanda's Christmas party."

Oh crap, she'd forgotten about that, but with Brad looking to score points, it's not like she can say no. "Of course," Penny says coolly. Across the table Sheldon's eyes widen but by what appears to be a superhuman effort of will he keeps his mouth shut. He really must love that Luke Skywalker doll.

"Well, we'll see you there," Brad says. "Nice to meet you, Sheldon."

Sheldon takes a break from glaring at Penny to nod at Brad.

"See you later," Penny says. "Nice to meet you, Melissa."

And finally, finally, Brad's leaving Penny alone with her newly minted very serious boyfriend, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD. Great. She goes back to her dinner, pretending nothing much has happened.

Sheldon's still glaring at her, and as soon as Brad's out of earshot, he says, "May I speak now without risk of your puerile threats?"

"Yes, Sheldon," she says. How does she get herself into these things, anyway? She was just doing Sheldon a favor and letting him get out of the stairwell without having to worry about someone touching his food, and now she has to pretend he's her boyfriend.

"Your very serious boyfriend?" Sheldon says. "How dare you? I've never been so insulted in my life."

"Hey!" Penny says. "You would be lucky to get me."

"Be that as it may," Sheldon says, picking up his knife and fork again. "I hope you don't think I'm going to that party with you. Because you can forget it."

"Oh, come on, Sheldon, please?" Penny says. Crap. Crap. If she can't convince Sheldon to pretend to be her boyfriend, Brad wins the breakup with his stupid "Melissa" and she can_not_ let Brad win the breakup. It's bad enough that she hasn't had sex in seven months -- she can't let Brad know how single she is so he can lord it over her on top of everything else terrible in her life. She searches around for the ways everybody else uses to make Sheldon do things. "Uh . . . it's a non-optional social convention."

Sheldon's eyes narrow. "Pretending to be your boyfriend at Amanda's Christmas party is a non-optional social convention? That seems very specific."

Ugh, it's not fair for him to have knowledge of human behavior like this all of a sudden, out of nowhere. "Sheldon," Penny says. "This is really important to me. Can't you just do me this huge favor? Friends do each other favors."

That does actually seem to get to Sheldon a little bit. He's been taking this friendship thing pretty seriously lately; sometimes Penny wonders if he has, like, a notebook where he writes down the conventions of friendship that he comes across. The "favor" has been his latest addition. "Well, it's an awfully big favor," he says slowly. "Besides, you know I'm not versed in the chit-chat required to be a social success at parties. Maybe you should get Leonard to pretend to be your boyfriend. I'm sure he'd be happy to oblige. Oh, or Howard."

Oh, gross. "Okay, first of all, ew," Penny says. "If I wanted to get groped against my will at this party, I'd still be with Brad. Second of all, I don't know if Leonard's girlfriend would really be on board with him being my fake-boyfriend either. And third of all, Brad already saw you, so it has to be you! Please?" She can hear her voice get whiny, but can't seem to stop it. "I'll be your best friend!"

Sheldon's forehead wrinkles. "My best friend? But that doesn't even make sense -- how could one commodify 'best-friend' status, and anyway, what's the criteria for --"

"God, Sheldon, it's an expression," Penny interrupts. "Look, if you do this, I'll owe you big-time. I'll drive you to the comic book store for a month."

"A month?" Sheldon says.

"All right, two months," Penny says.

"Make it three months and you drive me anywhere I want to go," Sheldon says.

"Okay," Penny says. "But then you have to really, really pretend to be my boyfriend. That means putting in, like, a really good performance. You're gonna have to dress the way I tell you, and . . . "

"What's wrong with the way I dress?" Sheldon says, indignant.

Penny ignores him. ". . . and do what I tell you and pretend to be a normal boyfriend, you got it?"

"Well, in that case, I think you should drive me anywhere I want to go for four months, and take care of me the next three times I get sick," Sheldon says.

Oh God, Sheldon when he's sick. Well, she doesn't have much of a choice. "Deal," she says, quick, before he can change his mind. They shake on it.

Great, and now Penny has less than a week to make Sheldon into boyfriend material. She is dead meat.

**

The really funny thing is, Leonard doesn't like this situation at _all_. When Penny comes over to take Sheldon to the mall so she can get him into costume, Leonard gets all agitated. "He's pretending to be your boyfriend?" Leonard says. "Isn't that a little weird?"

"Yes, it is," Penny says. "Come on, Sheldon, get your shoes on, let's go."

"Okay, okay," Sheldon says. "But I still don't know what's wrong with _my_ clothes."

"You dress like a three-year-old obsessed with the Super Friends," Penny says.

"Okay, but why Sheldon?" Leonard says. "Wouldn't it be better to have someone do this who's, you know, human?"

"The Super Friends?" Sheldon says, ignoring Leonard and clearly deeply annoyed. "Spiderman," he points at his shirt, "is not one of the Super Friends! Listen to yourself. Also, I resent your implication that my interests are in the genre of juvenilia."

"Sheldon, honey, I don't care," Penny says. "And yes, Leonard, it would be better, but Sheldon was there so we don't have a lot of choice."

Sheldon rolls his eyes and starts tying his second sneaker.

Leonard shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "You could choose not to pretend Sheldon's your boyfriend," he mutters.

"Yeah, whatever," Penny says. "Sheldon, let's go."

Sheldon finishes tying his shoe and picks up his messenger bag. "Honestly, the Super Friends," he's still grumbling. "My own girlfriend."

Sheldon, making a joke! "Well, opposites attract," Penny says, and follows him out the door. As she closes it behind her, she can see Leonard standing in the middle of the room alone, looking super weirded out, like he's just seen something so far outside the natural order he doesn't know how to deal with it.

**

Penny takes Sheldon to Hollister first -- like all of her boyfriends have worn a ton of Hollister, so if Sheldon's going to be convincing, she figures that's the way to go. She can't have Brad realizing this whole boyfriend thing is made up.

Of course, Sheldon looks wildly, wildly out of place in Hollister, but that's exactly what they're here to fix. He looks around the store with a vaguely horrified expression. "This is where you _shop_?" he says. "Why is it so loud?"

The music is really blaring, like always, but Penny shrugs. "It's fun, Sheldon."

"I have to disagree," Sheldon says. "How can I have 'fun' when I'm concerned about the well-being of my inner ear?"

Penny rolls her eyes and leads him over to the nearest table of shirts. "Come on, the faster we find something, the faster you can get out of here."

As she starts grabbing polo shirts and t-shirts with surfing logos, Sheldon trails behind her like a cranky twelve-year-old shopping with his mom. The look of distaste on his face keeps growing and growing.

Some blond dude comes up. "Can I help you guys with anything?"

"Oh," Penny says. "Yes, absolutely. I'm trying to get some better clothes for my boyfriend here." She puts her arm around Sheldon's waist, but instead of putting his arm over her shoulders like a normal person, he just stands there with his arms hanging all awkwardly, like it's taking all his concentration not to jerk away.

She stomps on his foot and he jumps. "Oh, right," he murmurs, so quiet that she almost doesn't hear it under the music, and he puts his arm around her shoulders. It's really unnatural feeling, though -- she didn't think there was a wrong way to put your arm over someone's shoulders, but Sheldon's definitely doing it wrong. Somehow. The clerk is giving them a really weird look. Okay, so that's something they're going to have to work on.

The clerk helps them grab a bunch of trendy clothes, and Penny makes Sheldon go back and try them on, waiting outside the dressing room as he starts to change. Oh, she loves having boys to dress up, she should see if Leonard wants her to take him shopping some time. God knows they all need it.

Sheldon comes out in cargo pants and a polo shirt with the collar popped, and a look on his face like he feels absolutely, completely ridiculous. And Penny can't help it, she laughs, because he kind of _does_ look ridiculous. Which is funny, because when he's dressed up in fifteenth-century monastic gear, or a Star Trek uniform, he doesn't look out of place in it at all.

After a huge amount of trial and error, Penny finally puts him in jeans and a blue button-down shirt with classy thin vertical stripes, both of which actually fit him well. He doesn't look like a super cool guy, exactly, but it's definitely an improvement, and she looks him up and down. Sure, he probably looks like someone she could date. He's tall, and reasonable looking, and he looks nice in that outfit. They're just going to have to try to do something with his hair.

"We're going to have to do something with your hair," Penny says to him in the car on the way home. Well, on the way to the comic book store, which they have to stop at on the way home as per the terms of their agreement.

"What's wrong with my hair?" Sheldon asks. "Also, as an aside, I would like to note for the record that I resent you dressing me up and doing my hair like I'm some sort of Ken doll in your Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse."

"Do we have to revisit the terms of our agreement?" Penny asks him. It wouldn't be hard to revisit it; he drafted up a contract and they both had to initial each item and sign the contract as a whole. "Where am I driving you right now? Oh, is it the comic book store?"

Sheldon shifts irritably in his seat, but he doesn't protest. One thing about his contract OCD, when he starts complaining about something, he's trapped by his own rules. It comes in handy now that she's learned how to work it, and it's actually funny how Leonard hasn't figured out how to use it against him yet, considering how long they've lived together. She's seen their roommate contract; Leonard let Sheldon walk all over him in that thing. She makes a mental note to tell Leonard to have her look over anything else Sheldon wants him to sign before he does it.

**

When they get back to the apartment building, Penny makes Sheldon put on his new clothes while she gets some hair gel and meets him in his and Leonard's bathroom to see what they can do. First she tries just slicking his hair down with water, or parting it on one side, but most of what she does makes him look worse. Which is funny; she'd thought Sheldon had worked hard to find the things that looked the absolute worst, but apparently he's actually doing pretty good with what he's got.

Leonard hovers in the doorway for the first couple of minutes. "How was shopping?" he asks.

"Great," Penny says, at the exact same time as Sheldon says, "Horrible."

"Oh, sweetie," Penny says to Sheldon, running a comb through his hair as he sits on the lid of the toilet. "It's so nice how you do things you hate because you love me, though. That's why our relationship's so strong."

Sheldon rolls his eyes, smiling a little bit in spite of himself, and Leonard looks really uncomfortable. "Okay," Leonard says. "You guys have to stop that, it's freaking me out."

Sheldon looks surprised. "Why is it freaking you out? It's a joke based on how ludicrous it is that Penny and I would ever be in any kind of romantic relationship."

"Yeah, I know," Leonard says. "Still."

"I mean, wouldn't it be amusing if I called Penny 'love muffin'?" Sheldon says. Penny wants to burst out laughing less at the joke than at the incredibly appalled look on Leonard's face. Sheldon gives his weird little snicker, the rare one that means he's actually amused.

"Um, okay, well, you guys have fun in here!" Leonard says, and beats a quick retreat towards the living room.

Penny laughs and goes back to trying to fix Sheldon's hair. Sheldon's scalp is hot under her hands, and there's something soothing about doing someone's hair, kind of zen. Sheldon's stopped jerking away when she touches him too, it's sort of sweet. Maybe he wouldn't actually be that bad as a boyfriend. Better than Leonard, even -- Sheldon's scornful of _everyone's_ intelligence, including his fellow PhDs, so it's not like she'd feel self-conscious about not being a brainiac like she did with Leonard. And Sheldon's so socially inept that they'd almost be on equal footing, like they'd balance each other out. He could tell her about things like Schrodinger's cat, and she could tell him how not to be incredibly insulting to everyone he comes into contact with. Plus, Penny's, like, the only one who can ever keep him in line. The rest of the world kind of needs her to date him, really.

Penny smoothes his hair back down and says, "Is it really that ludicrous that we'd ever be in a romantic relationship?" She's feeling a little thoughtful, a little affectionate towards the big freak that is Sheldon.

"Yes," Sheldon says without even hesitating. "I have no interest in romantic relationships. They serve as a distraction and interfere with clarity of thought. That's why Leonard's work is so derivative; he's always thinking about sexual intercourse."

Penny winces. "Please don't say 'intercourse,'" she says. "It's gross."

Sheldon's forehead furrows. "What would you prefer I say? Coitus? Sexual relations? Making love?"

"Oh my _God_, Sheldon," Penny says. "Sex, okay? Can you just say 'have sex'? Like a normal person?"

Sheldon looks like she's just asked him to wash the dishes with a circular clockwise motion. Like, he doesn't mind, if she really cares that much about something so completely ridiculous, but he doesn't really see the point. Actually, when she thinks about it, he'd probably see the point more of washing the dishes with a circular clockwise motion than of this. "If you prefer the more colloquial version, I suppose I can," Sheldon says. "Leonard's work is so derivative because he's always thinking about having sex."

"_Thank_ you," Penny says.

"And I have no interest in having sex," Sheldon says.

"Okay!" Penny says, trying to make this line of conversation stop. "Tell me something, Sheldon." She decides maybe it's time to try hair gel and grabs the bottle off the back of the toilet tank. "Are you, in fact, part of the human race?" She squeezes a dollop of gel onto her palm and starts rubbing her hands together.

"I like to think that I'm a step forward in homo sapiens's evolution," Sheldon says smugly.

She should've seen that one coming. "Sit up straighter, sweetie," Penny says, and Sheldon sits up straighter. She starts to rub the gel in and wonders what he'd look like with Zach Braff hair. Fifteen minutes later, she finds out that the answer is "terrible."

**

"Okay," Penny says. She's standing in the middle of Leonard and Sheldon's living room, with Sheldon sitting on the couch in front of her. Yesterday, they worked on Sheldon's clothes and hair -- today, the syllabus calls for a lesson on small talk. Sheldon focuses better if there's a neatly outlined curriculum, she's found. "Today we're going to try what I call, Being Normal in Front of Your Peers."

Sheldon almost snorts. "Peers?" he says. "_My_ peers? At Amanda's Christmas party? Please."

"You're wasting your tiiime," Leonard sing-songs from behind them in the kitchen.

"Do we have to ask you to leave?" Penny says sternly.

"No," Leonard says.

"Because one more outburst and I'm going to kiss him in front of you," Penny says.

Leonard shudders. "Penny, please," he says in a really upset voice.

"You can't kiss me," Sheldon says. "Physical contact isn't on the syllabus until tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah, that's true," Penny says, going back to her note-cards. Behind her, Leonard starts coughing like he's about to choke to death.

"You're kidding," he finally manages to get out.

"Well, he's got to be convincing," Penny says. "And he's not going to be convincing without any practice."

Leonard looks green. "Why are you -- what are you -- you guys, this is seriously really weird. Really, really weird."

"Yeah, yeah," Penny waves him off. "Okay, Sheldon, first up, let's go over basic greetings."

**

The physical contact session the next day actually doesn't go too badly. Sheldon comes over to Penny's apartment after work -- she's not quite mean enough to make Leonard have to watch this particular class, not after how he looked during the part of the session yesterday on appropriate endearments.

They do hand-holding first, walking around the room together until Sheldon stops holding his arm so stiffly and it feels less awkward. When it finally feels sort of natural, it's actually pretty nice; Sheldon's hand isn't sweaty, Penny assumes because the fact that he reproduces through mitosis means girls don't make him nervous, and it's big and warm. Nice.

Though was mitosis the one Howard was talking about where he eats a lot of Thai food and splits into two Sheldons, or the one with the cocoon? Sometimes Penny sort of really likes hanging out with smart guys all the time; it makes her smarter, she's pretty sure. It's just hard to remember all the stuff they say. Mitosis. She'll have to wikipedia it later. Or she could ask Sheldon, but she doesn't really have an hour to spare for the history of the discovery of mitosis, or whatever that would turn into.

"Okay, very good," Penny says, letting go of his hand and leaning against the kitchen counter. "I think you've got the hang of it."

"Thank you," Sheldon says. He's not in costume today, so he's wearing his Green Lantern t-shirt over an orange collared shirt, which would be a disaster even without the plaid pants he's added to it. She wonders if he might be color blind on top of everything else.

"Now we move on to bigger things -- you're going to put your arm around my shoulders," Penny says.

Sheldon sighs. "Is this really necessary?"

"Boyfriends put their arms around their girlfriends' shoulders," Penny says. "Come on, Sheldon. It was really awkward when we tried it at Hollister. That clerk definitely thought we were faking, and the people at this party can_not_ know we're faking."

"All right," Sheldon says, sounding defeated. As Penny moves to put her arm around his waist, he lifts his arm and says, "I don't know why you want everybody to think I'm your boyfriend anyway. I've never exactly been considered a prime reproductive specimen. Which is perplexing when you think about it; sperm from a person with my IQ can be sold for very high prices at discriminating sperm banks."

Penny settles his arm around her shoulders, adjusting their bodies so they fit together. Sheldon's still stiff, like this is a movement he's never done before. "Please don't talk about sperm right now," Penny says. "Or ever. And relax, Sheldon, this isn't going to work if you're standing there like you're about to be tortured by the Viet Cong. It's supposed to be pleasant."

"Okay, fine, I'm relaxing," Sheldon says, and Penny feels his body purposefully untense, though not in a very natural way. Oh well, he'll have to get used to it. "Anyway," Sheldon continues. "I still think that using me to show up your gorilla of an ex-boyfriend is not the most effective of plans. I'm not sure he'll see me as legitimate competition, due to my pallid complexion, interest in the hard sciences, and lack of physical prowess in any kind of athletic competition."

Penny tries to adjust more, moving around until it finally starts to feel like a human has his arm around her. And . . . is Sheldon actually insecure about his looks? That's vaguely hilarious. "Sheldon, are you trying to ask me if you're pretty?"

"No, I'm trying to weasel out of our agreement by pointing out that your plan is ridiculous," Sheldon says. "Weasel, that's the correct expression, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Penny says. "And nice try, but you're stuck. Besides, you clean up okay. If I can manage to get you to touch me like you don't expect your fingernails to get ripped off, I don't think you'll embarrass me too much."

"If you say so," Sheldon says.

Penny thinks the arm thing is actually okay while they're standing. She makes him do it several times, to make the action of going into it and out of it more natural.

"Okay," she says finally, once she's satisfied he's vaguely competent. "Now let's try it sitting down. We might end up on a couch at that party."

By this point Sheldon's stopped bothering to complain, which is handy. Though he does make her move when she goes to sit on the couch in the space he always sits in, ever since he determined its optimum seating potential. "Sheldon, for heaven's sake," Penny says. "Are you going to have to check which seat at the party is optimum too?"

"Opti_mal_," Sheldon says. "And no, I believe at parties it is customary to move from location to location."

"Fine," Penny says. "So okay. Here we go." And she curls up beside him, leaning her head on his shoulder and moving his arm around her. It's the classic couch cuddling move, and she can't really see Sheldon's face when she does it, so he could be any guy, really.

"Okay?" Penny says.

"I suppose," Sheldon says.

He's gotten less awkward over the course of the evening, though, like all this touching her is making it something that's not a big deal, which has been her goal all along. "Okay," she says. "We're just going to sit here like this for awhile, all right? So you can get used to it. I'll turn on the TV."

Penny flips around until she finds a Star Trek rerun -- might as well throw Sheldon a bone -- and then she cuddles up to him the way she'd do with her actual boyfriend. The way she used to do with Brad. And Sheldon actually curls his arm around her in a normal way, without her even telling him to. Heyyy, maybe her lessons are actually working.

It's kind of funny, but being quiet like this, listening to Sheldon's breathing through his chest, curled up there with his arm around her -- well, it's just kind of nice. Comforting. She's missed this, all these months that she hasn't been dating anybody. She's missed it kind of a lot, and Sheldon's warm, and the TV's turned down low, and it feels peaceful. Secure. For a second she wants to cry and she doesn't even know why.

Captain Picard makes a tough decision to save the ship, and she lets her eyes drift closed, just for a second. She's just resting, just happy. This is good, that Sheldon can sit together like this without wincing. They might just pull this thing off after all. That'll show stupid whatshisname -- Br . . . ian? Yeah, that'll . . . show. That guy.

That's the last thing she remembers before she hears Leonard say, "What are you two doing?" He doesn't say it loud, so she's not quite sure why it wakes her up. But he also doesn't say it in the funny, agitated, over-the-top creeped out way he's been protesting this whole thing all along, where he was grossed out but kind of playing it up. He says this quietly, seriously, like he's actually really worried about one or both of them; says it in an undertone to Sheldon, the way you might talk to someone about something serious, like their cancer diagnosis.

"Shh," Sheldon says, and he actually rubs her arm a little bit with his thumb. Whoa, what is that about?

Penny checks to make sure she wasn't drooling, and then as she blinks at Leonard, standing there with that quiet worried look on his face, she thinks, oh God, I just fell asleep cuddled up to Sheldon, and I liked it. Oh God.

She sits up fast. "Wow, sorry, did I fall asleep?" she says. She tries to sound normal, but her heart's pounding, and just -- what was that about? She felt safe. She felt happy. Oh God. "What time is it?"

"Eleven-thirty," Sheldon says. He's sitting there next to her, smiling a little bit, not looking annoyed at all. "We watched two Star Trek reruns and the first half of Return of the Jedi."

Leonard's still watching the two of them, not saying anything, with that look on his face like he just saw bruises on a kid and doesn't know whether or not to call the cops. A look of grave concern.

"Okay, um," Penny says, still not knowing what's going on with her and feeling a little panicky about it. "Well, I guess we're done for today! Good session, Sheldon. Sorry about the nap."

Sheldon looks at her, still with that little smile on his face, but with his forehead furrowing a little bit. "What about kissing? You said we were going to do kissing." If she didn't know any better, she'd think that he _wanted_ to kiss her.

"Uh . . . " Penny says. No, no, no, they cannot do kissing. "I don't think we need to. We probably won't have to kiss or anything at the party, um, people don't make other people kiss. Generally. So, uh, class dismissed!" She tries to sound chipper and regular, and Leonard's still standing there, looking.

Sheldon looks a little disappointed -- no, he doesn't, he's _Sheldon_, he's just concerned about skipping parts of the syllabus, probably. But after falling asleep on him like that, she can't kiss him. She just doesn't feel like that's a good idea, and. God, at least the party's tomorrow and they can all go back to being their normal selves, because all of a sudden this has really crossed over the line from hilarious-fun-weird to creepy-weird.

Penny hustles Sheldon and Leonard out the door and when she shuts it behind them, she leans against it, trying to get her heart to slow down. She'd felt good. But it's not a big deal, right? It's just that she's lonely and that it's been a long time and Sheldon was there. That's all. Any warm body would've made her feel the same way.

She takes two Nyquil, hoping that it'll keep her from dreaming. She just doesn't really want to know what her subconscious has been up to lately.

**

Penny wakes up on the day of the party with a sick lump of dread already settled in her stomach. It'll be fine, she tells herself as she brushes her teeth. She'll take Sheldon to this party, and she'll have a good time because she always has a good time when she's hanging out with Sheldon or Leonard or those guys, weirdly enough, and Brad will think they're dating, and then nothing will happen and she'll go home at the end of the night and never have to do any of this again because pretty soon she'll find a new boyfriend, a real one, and won't be so lonely that she gets herself into ridiculous situations where she has to pretend.

She got a new dress for the party, a red one that's a perfect Christmas dress. This is the last weekend before the holiday; she's going home to Nebraska on Monday, and she's started to think about it longingly, her mom's ginger cookies, eggnog, presents under the tree, her cousin's new baby girl. Her grandma's questions about why she's not married. Well, you take the good with the bad, she guesses, and she's so nervous about this stupid party that she gets ready too early and then has ten minutes with nothing to do but wander around and let her palms get sweaty. God, this is ridiculous. It's just _Sheldon_, for heaven's sake. She needs to get a grip.

Ugh, she's going to go next door and bug Leonard for awhile, anything to stop pacing around like a freakazoid. So she goes into their apartment without knocking, like always, and Leonard looks up from his laptop. "Penny," he says and blinks, swallowing. "You, um. You look nice." He sounds a little -- quiet? Weird? She doesn't know, but it's not like he hasn't seen her in a dress before. It's too bad about Leonard's crush on her, really -- it sometimes makes things awkward. Though at the same time it's kind of nice to have someone like her, especially when it's been six months and she starts feeling like she's fundamentally unlovable or something. Nice to come over and have Leonard look at her like that.

"Thanks," Penny says, and sprawls onto the couch in spite of her dress. Ladylikeness be damned.

Leonard turns around in his chair to look at her. "You, uh, ready for this party tonight?"

She shrugs, which all slumped down like this vaguely makes her feel like a teenager. "I guess," she says. "I don't know. This was probably a stupid idea."

Leonard stretches his face into what might be supposed to be a smile. "Yeah, remember when I said that when you started?"

"Sure do," she says, trying not to roll her eyes. She probably should have listened to him. She was just so _bored_, and it all seemed like a fun project. "Where's Sheldon? Does he need me to do his hair?"

Just then, Sheldon comes walking into the room in his jeans and button-down, with his hair sort of mildly rumpled and gelled in a way that actually looks pretty good.

"Sheldon!" Penny says. "You look fantastic."

"I look ridiculous," he says, all cranky, but when she gets up he looks at her, almost the way that Leonard was looking at her earlier. A weird, quiet look. He clears his throat a little and says, "I believe the convention is for me to say you look nice."

Penny rolls her eyes. "All right, all right, don't put yourself out," she says. At least it's nice of him to remind her that he's still Sheldon, and even if she fell asleep on top of him by accident, there is absolutely no need to be nervous about anything happening tonight. God, she has got to get a boyfriend.

"Hey, remember when _I_ said you look nice?" Leonard says.

Oh, for heaven's sake, she can't deal with either of them. "Yes, Leonard. Come on, Sheldon, I guess we better get this over with."

**

Penny rings the doorbell of Amanda's apartment, and next to her, Sheldon shifts his weight from one foot to the other. God, she hopes this whole thing isn't a disaster. Just as Penny's about to have a panic attack, Sheldon puts his arm around her and she almost jumps out of her skin. When she twists around to look at him, he smiles at her a little bit.

"I'm doing it correctly, right?" Sheldon says. "Just getting into character."

Penny nods, and carefully puts her arm up around his waist. He is doing it right; it feels really normal, really natural. She feels him take a deep breath, as though he's centering himself like an actor about to go on stage. And she's just -- really conscious of Sheldon's body next to her, how warm he is, the solid weight of his arm over her shoulders. Like she's hyper-aware of all her skin, the nerve endings going crazy.

Amanda opens the door and Penny forces herself to smile like normal, not nervous, not freaking out about Sheldon voluntarily touching her. "Hey, Amanda," she says, and takes a deep breath. "This is my boyfriend, Sheldon."

**

The party's actually pretty good. Penny has a few drinks, because God, she desperately needs some drinks to calm her down, and she tells Sheldon that she's making him a rum &amp; diet coke with no rum, but she puts the rum in anyway. Drunk Sheldon's more fun, and it's not like it could make him _more_ socially awkward, after all. The last time she got him drunk, he ended up singing the entire soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof while banging on the restaurant's keyboard, and she wonders if he'll get that exuberant this time. She's kind of hoping for it. Or hoping for something, anyway -- she doesn't quite know what. The whole situation's making her really self-conscious -- she sees her friends looking between her and Sheldon and can tell they're all wondering what's going on there, thinking that she's having sex with this slightly weird dude. Well, more than slightly weird. They probably think he must be really good in bed or something, and oh God, Sheldon in bed. The whole thing's making her really conscious of her body, and Sheldon's body, and Sheldon's playing the part of her boyfriend so wholeheartedly that he keeps, like, holding her hand and touching her arm and oh God. She might actually completely lose her mind, she thinks, and goes to get another drink.

But after Penny's a little buzzed she feels better about the situation, more normal. She sort of starts to forget that Sheldon isn't really her boyfriend -- or maybe she starts to forget that her fake boyfriend is really Sheldon. It's just -- it's really easy for her to slip into the routine of having a boyfriend at a party, how they stick together for awhile, and then split up while still orbiting each other, keeping track of what the other person is doing. Since Sheldon's a little buzzed himself he's actually doing karaoke -- he sings Walking in Memphis, and after he finishes he comes over and whispers to her that he knows it from an episode of The X-Files, his breath hot and tickling her ear -- and then he's talking to some of her friends, and one of the girls seems to really like him, actually laughing and touching his arm, and for a second Penny's like, _hey, get OFF him_. Which is pretty funny, jealous over Sheldon, and also pretty alarming, because seriously. Jealous over _Sheldon_? What has gotten into her? It's probably just that she's drunk, and that she gets territorial. Because hey, maybe Sheldon's not really her boyfriend, but that girl doesn't know that.

Penny has another drink to try to get back to normal, but in the meantime she also goes and whisks Sheldon off away from that girl to talk to Jessica and Brian. Five minutes into the conversation she notices that she's still holding onto Sheldon's arm. But hey, that's normal, she's just playing a part, right? She's gotta make it believable. Also she's kind of drunk. People do things when they're drunk, that's regular.

"So how did you two meet?" Jessica asks.

"Ah," Sheldon says. "The social convention is to have a romantic story, isn't it? Well, this is a very . . . "

Penny cuts him off before he says something appalling. "We live across the hall from each other," she says.

"Aww," Jessica says. "That's so cute!"

Sheldon leans in conspiratorially before Penny can stop him. "It was very romantic," he says. "The day she moved in, I saw her and thought, there is the love of my life. I made my roommate help her move in, and then we invited her over for dinner, and I knew. I knew she was The One." He smiles down at Penny, half an acted in-love smile, and half an amused Sheldon smile, which she's pretty sure is so amused because this is actually Leonard's story, how Leonard would tell it to their grandchildren, if she ever got together with Leonard. That's weird.

Oh well. Penny tries not to roll her eyes as she pats Sheldon's arm. "Yeah, and he finally convinced me to try nice guys instead of dating jerks all the time," she says. God, she hopes that gets back to Brad.

Sheldon smiles at her. He actually seems to be enjoying himself.

**

Penny gets caught up in talking to one of her friends that she hasn't seen for a long time, and when she finally finishes the conversation and looks up, Sheldon's disappeared. Oh no. Oh no. That's not good; he's had quite a few rum and diet cokes, and he could be doing anything. He could be getting beaten up by Brad, for all she knows.

So she goes looking for him, and finally finds him in Amanda's bedroom, looking at the two or three books on her shelves. Amanda's decorated her room for Christmas, one of those little two-foot trees with colored lights strung on it, and lights strung up on the wall over her bed. The overhead light isn't on, so the only light in the room is coming from the Christmas lights, the whole room red and blue and green and yellow, dim.

"Hey," Penny says, taking a couple steps into the room. Sheldon turns his head to look at her, sort of slow and relaxed. "You get bored of the party?"

Sheldon shrugs, and looks back at the book in his hand. It's a romance novel. "Your friend doesn't seem to be much of a reader," he says.

Penny laughs a little bit, and sits on the edge of Amanda's bed. She's a little dizzy, a little buzzed. "Are you surprised?" she says.

"Not really," he says. He puts the book back on the shelf and sits down on the bed next to Penny. "I feel good," he says. "Those diet cokes were really good."

Penny laughs again. It's amazing how he can't tell when there's alcohol in something. "I mix a mean diet coke," she says, and lies back on the bed. She's so drunk she's getting sleepy, and going into that mood where she wants to pull something over her face, lie down and pass out, maybe. She puts her arms up over her head and rolls her neck around. "This bed is soft," she says. Amanda has a really nice comforter, dark green and pretty. "Feel," Penny says, and grabs Sheldon's hand to pull him down next to her.

He lets her pull him, and so they end up lying next to each other under the glow of the Christmas lights, faces close to each other and legs dangling off the edge of the bed. "Isn't it soft?" she says.

"It doesn't feel any different from most beds," Sheldon says. It's one of those contrary things he always says, but he's sort of smiling this time, so it doesn't come out as aggravating as it usually does.

"I think it feels nice," Penny says, and punches him in the arm. "You're just a spoilsport."

Sheldon punches her back. "You sound like my sister Missy," he says.

Penny goes to punch him again, but softly, and she doesn't quite pull her hand back, so really now she's more just touching his bare arm. He's rolled up the sleeves of his button-down, probably because it was pretty hot with all the people around in the living room, and it looks nice. Not that his forearms are anything to write home about, but still.

Their faces are just really close together, and he keeps looking at her. Sheldon's usually not a big one for eye contact, but maybe after he's had some drinks, he's different. Penny's starting to feel a little awkward, a little self-conscious. This is mostly because she's kind of wishing that they'd done the session on kissing after all. It's just human curiosity more than anything though, she's pretty sure. Because what on earth would Sheldon be like to kiss? It's hard to imagine and easy to imagine at the same time. She wonders if he's ever kissed anyone before, and looks at his mouth. He has an okay mouth.

"You're looking at my mouth," Sheldon says.

"Am I?" Penny says, and her voice comes out kind of quiet and far away. Boy, she is drunk. D-R-U-N-K.

"And your pupils are dilated," Sheldon says. "You didn't dilate your pupils for Leonard."

"What?" Penny says. God, what is he talking about? Sheldon sure knows how to woo a lady.

"Pupil dilation is a clear sign of arousal in humans," Sheldon says. "As is your increased rate of respiration."

For heaven's sake. "Sheldon, you can be a real asshole sometimes, do you know that?"

Sheldon looks genuinely hurt. "I was just going to tell you that if you wanted to kiss me, I wouldn't be opposed. Sometimes I think my lack of the full range of human experience could be a shortcoming. And I did agree to be your boyfriend for the evening."

Urgh, what the hell? He is so weird. "Well, even if I did want to kiss you, which I'm not saying that I did, you've kind of killed the mood," Penny says.

The colored lights blink on and off on the wall, and Sheldon's features turn blue and red, then go dim again, then back to blue and red. The thing is, Penny likes Christmas. It's sort of calming, sort of happy. That and the alcohol are probably the only things keeping her lying here instead of rolling her eyes and calling a cab to go home.

Sheldon looks really surprised. "Honesty kills the mood? What's the mood?"

"God, Sheldon, if you want to kiss somebody, just kiss them, okay? You don't have to describe every little thing about them. It's creepy and off-putting, and you're making me feel bad about my--"

Penny has never been more surprised than when Sheldon leans in and kisses her, cutting off her little diatribe. She doesn't even close her eyes for the first, like, ten seconds, that's how surprised she is.

Sheldon's lips are dry, and he's actually not that bad at kissing. Maybe it _is_ possible to learn these things from the internet -- maybe there are even instructional videos. She wonders if Sheldon's been prepping for this, reading up on it, and remembers that he said he'd been reading up on sex techniques back when he was trying to seduce her. Oh God, that's weird and pretty gross, but even as she's thinking that, she kisses him back. She can't seem to help it, and she puts her hand up to his face, and opens her mouth, and when he hesitates she runs her tongue over his lips, trying to see if he wants to try French kissing. His breath stutters a little bit, and then his mouth opens up, so she can slide her tongue into it.

Penny feels him tense up, feels him surprised, but then he's kissing her back even harder, and he actually seems to be into it. Oh God, this is so weird, but she's been pretending that he's her boyfriend all week, and wondering what it'd be like to kiss him for even longer than that, and oh god, he's putting his hand on her hip as they lie on the bed next to each other, her hair touching both their faces.

Footsteps, and the half-open door banging open, and a voice saying, "Oh! God, sorry." Penny and Sheldon jerk away from each other, and when she rolls over to look, the guy looking traumatized in the doorway is Brad.

Wow. She couldn't have planned that if she tried, and on the one hand it's kind of awesome that she not only tricked Brad into believing she's dating Sheldon, but she also managed to get him to walk in on the two of them making out. Of course, on the other hand, she was _actually kissing Sheldon_, not for show, but for real. And even if she's drunk and was pretending all night and all the other extenuating circumstances, oh God. Penny feels her face go hot, and when she looks over, Sheldon's blushing too. She's never seen him blush before; it's weird, like he's human. He has lip gloss ruddying up his lips.

"I, uh, was just getting my coat," Brad says, and he's not looking at either of them as he gets it out of Amanda's closet. "Um, merry Christmas, Penny," he says as he leaves the room. Penny watches him go.

Penny and Sheldon are sitting next to each other on the bed now, and she can't think what to say. She feels vaguely ashamed, and vaguely turned on, and she just doesn't know how she got herself into this situation. Didn't know that Sheldon would kiss her. Didn't know a lot of things.

"Um," she says finally, as the Christmas lights keep blinking. "You should probably go wash your face."

Sheldon's brow furrows. "Why?" he says. Penny gestures to her lips, and he blinks. "Oh," he says. "Right." His voice is strangely quiet, without that normal Sheldon air of confidence and scorn. He sounds really rattled.

"I'll call a cab while you do," Penny says. "If you're ready to go home."

"Okay," Sheldon says, and gets up to go wash his face in the bathroom, leaving her alone in Amanda's dim room, on the mussed bedspread. Penny sits there for what feels like a long time before she can manage to move enough to make the call.

**

They sit at opposite ends of the cab's backseat on the way home, Penny hunched up against the right hand door, Sheldon scooted all the way over against the left hand one. She looks out the window the whole time, not looking over at Sheldon, watching the lights of the city pass by.

About halfway home, Sheldon says, "So I guess I'm not your boyfriend anymore."

The streets slide by outside the window. They pass a Starbucks, a Whole Foods. "Guess not," Penny says, trying to sound normal, like nothing much has happened. She doesn't think she's too successful at it. "You're off the hook."

"Yeah," Sheldon says. His voice is still all quiet and un-Sheldon-y. It's unsettling. "That's a relief." But he says it like it's not actually a relief at all. Penny feels a little sick to her stomach and wraps her arms around herself even though it's not cold.

They walk up the four flights of steps to their apartments together, and Penny thinks that these stairs always seem long, but tonight they're longer than ever. Neither of them says anything until they're at the top, and then Sheldon says, "Do you want your hair gel back?"

"Oh," Penny says. "Yeah, I guess."

Inside Sheldon's darkened apartment, Leonard's still awake even though it's late, sitting on the couch staring at the TV like he's looking through it instead of watching it.

"Hey, Leonard," Penny says, though her voice has a distinct lack of enthusiasm. She was hoping she wouldn't have to see anybody until she'd regained her equilibrium.

Leonard looks at the two of them. "How was your date?" he asks. He's trying to make a joke, but he looks weird, and Sheldon looks weird, and Penny sure feels weird.

"Um, fine," Penny says. "I just came in for my hair gel."

"I'll get it," Sheldon says, and starts to head back towards the back hallway.

Leonard stares at him, and then says slowly, "Sheldon, you have lip gloss on your collar."

Oh God, oh fuck, oh no, oh God. Sheldon looks at Penny, panicky. "Oh, um," Penny says. "Yeah, there was a lip gloss accident where I was putting more on and it squirted out of my hand. No big deal."

Leonard looks at her like he's sure she's lying, and Sheldon makes a break for the bathroom. "Oh," Leonard says as Sheldon disappears. Penny shifts her weight from one foot to the other and doesn't know what's happened to her. Leonard looks at her for a long moment. "Well," he says finally. "I guess now things'll be getting back to normal."

Penny clears her throat. "Yeah," she says. "I'm sure we'll be onto a different set of wacky hijinks for next week."

"Yeah," Leonard says.

"Yeah," Penny says.

**  
END


End file.
